Lettered aracari
The lettered aracari or lettered araçari is a near-passerine bird in the toucan family Ramphastidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Taxonomy and systematics
The International Ornithological Committee, the Clements taxonomy, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society recognize two subspecies of lettered aracari: the nominate P. i. inscriptus and P. i. humboldti. P. i. humboldti had originally been described as a separate species, and later as a subspecies of green aracari. BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World treats it as a species, "Humboldt's araçari". The SACC is soliciting a proposal to adopt that treatment.This article follows the IOC et al. two-subspecies model.
Description
The lettered aracari is long. The nominate subspecies weighs about and P. i. humboldti about. In both the male is larger than the female and has a longer bill. Their bills have a complex pattern. The nominate's has a mostly yellow maxilla with a narrow black stripe on the culmen, a wide black tip, and a series of black "script" markings along its lower edge. Its mandible is pale yellow with a wide black base and tip and a few black "script" markings near the tip. P. i. humboldtis maxilla is like the nominate's but its mandible is almost entirely black.Nominate males have a black head except for bare blue, violet gray, and red skin around the eye. Their upperparts, wings, and tail are dark green except for a crimson rump. Their breast, belly, and undertail coverts are yellow with pale buff cinnamon blotches. Their tibial feathers vary from green to half green and half pale yellow. Nominate females have chestnut on their throat and the sides of their head and neck; the throat's chestnut has a narrow black band below it. Immatures resemble pale versions of the adults.
Both sexes of subspecies P. i. humboldti have plumage very like the nominates' except for cinnamon or rufous tibial feathers.
Distribution and habitat
The nominate subspecies of lettered aracari is found in north central Brazil south of the Amazon River between the Madeira and Maranhão rivers and from there south to northern Bolivia and the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso and the upper Tocantins River. A small separate population is in the far eastern Brazilian states of Pernambuco and Alagoas. P. i. humboldti is found in southern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, northwestern Bolivia, and western Brazil near the Amazon to the Negro River and south a bit beyond the upper Madeira River.The species inhabits a variety of lowland evergreen forest types in the upper Amazon basin. These include várzea, terra firme, secondary and gallery forests, and forested islands. In elevation it generally ranges as high as about but locally occurs as high as.